Isn’t it weird how some people take an already adrenaline-filled situation and just make it harder for everyone else? Like workplace competition. Or a DMV. Or an airplane – like the story today. Who knew assigned seats could become so problematic?
But, well, one woman online shared her experience on r/entitledparents after a mom decided to take her seat so she could sit next to her son – and didn’t even bother to talk to the woman who originally had the seat. A flight attendant eventually had to step in, and the woman refused to give up her seat for the mom, purely out of spite. You win some, you lose some.
Catching a flight is already as stressful as it can be, but reaching your seat only to have someone else in it is a whole new can of worms
Getty Images / Unsplash (not the actual photo)
This woman’s trip was infinitely more stressful than it should have been, all because of a mom who took the woman’s seat and promptly ignored her
Curated Lifestyle / Unsplash (not the actual photo)
Being a parent doesn’t immediately mean you’re entitled to a different seat to be by your kid
Most people don’t consider the intricacies involved in assigning seats on an airplane. Essentially, the Federal Aviation Administration, or FAA, requires an aircraft’s weight and balance to be carefully calculated before takeoff due to safety precautions. This doesn’t mean that one seat would completely throw off the aircraft’s aerodynamics, but it is one of the reasons why assigned seating exists.
In case of an emergency, assigned seating can also be important for post-incident identification, on a more morbid note. But if we’re looking at the facts, assigning seats also acts as a kind of structural buffer that addresses humans’ psychological and biological needs in a high-stress environment, psychologists say. Structure and a sense of safety and control can reduce territorial anxiety, making it easier to navigate a limited space like an aircraft.
But what the mother was actually doing, aside from ignoring basic social etiquette, was essentially a power play. Psychologists have researched psychological entitlement in public spaces, and this kind of behavior can involve deliberately claiming someone else’s territory while banking on the other person’s tendency to avoid conflict. And when confronted, instead of apologizing, they may refuse to communicate as a way of asserting dominance.
Getty Images / Unsplash (not the actual photo)
By not immediately calling the flight attendant, the woman ended up dealing with the entitled mom for far longer than she wanted
On one hand, the woman did act correctly when it came to de-escalating the situation. By using what therapists call “tactical empathy,” she acknowledged the mom’s perspective without necessarily endorsing it. She tried to find a win-win resolution first by suggesting a switch, as long as the woman told her where her original seat was, which she failed to do.
While this was happening, however, the situation could have easily been prevented if the woman had originally called the flight attendant to avoid a direct confrontation. Sociologists indicate that giving in to passive-aggressive non-compliance can create a moral hazard. It could lead to rewarding stonewalling as a technique that benefits the other person, or the aggressor, and perpetuate that behavior.
Ultimately, the woman did involve a third party, the flight attendant, to resolve the situation and opted not to allow the seat switch. While she immediately understood that the mom wanted to be near her child, aviation operations and cabin management also suggest that unauthorized seat swapping can lead to secondary delays, as it may cause passengers to sequentially take the wrong seats, even if the woman only switched with the mother.
So, do you think the woman actually did the right thing by ultimately choosing not to switch seats? Or should she have shown the mother even more grace and switched in order to let a mom sit with her minor child? Let us know what you would have done instead, Pandas!
Here’s what readers had to say
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